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I am working with a fairly tall female vaulter who has hit a plateau in the development of her swing. She is consistently unable to get inverted before the pole Unbends. I know more or less what she is doing wrong, she blocks her bottom arm lat in the vault, preventing her hips from rising, and also pulls in her left leg, reducing her whip. We have been trying to increase her swing speed with lots of straight pole swing drills, core work ( hanging leg raises, ab wheel etc) and swings on rings. We have seen some progress but it is very inconsistent. Does anyone have any other ideas or observations that have worked for you in the past, especially with long limbed vaulters. More info on my athlete, and a video link below

She is 5'8 and about 135lb with a large wingspan. She has been vaulting at the top of a 13' 150 with standards at 80 from a 7 left approach. We recently moved her to a 14' 140 holding at around 13'. Her personal best is 11'1".

This video is from 7 lefts on a 13' 140 lb USC holding at 13'. The bungee is at 12'
http://youtu.be/sLJXpZRUUFU

It seems that she is gripping so low that she is what I like to call weightlifting at takeoff. Try moving her grip up oon a smaller pole.

In this video, she is about 1 shoe length in/under, and she throws her head back. I also noticed she drops her right knee, doesn't whip the left leg, then draws both legs in rather than driving the right knee and staying long during the swing with a vigorous whip/kick of her left leg. She needs some highbar/rings practice of the PV swing. Plant and plant timing looked great.

Good article on take-off position (why the vaulter shouldn't be under on take-off):
http://artofthevault.com/articles/the-t ... ole-vault/

Video on PV swing on highbar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqS-GGiCHUE

Video on head position:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5QwSz_xsw

Right, I know she was a little under on that vault. I can identify the issues, but was just curious if anyone had anything innovative they do to work on increasing swing speed. We do ring work when we can, but do not have access to a high bar. We also do core work such as leg raises frequently as I mentioned above.

I would try some short runs with a bending pole and see if she can get the hang of it there.

"Right, I know she was a little under on that vault."

To me that is a bit like saying "She's a little dead" because a maze of problems flow from being under - including the fact that it is difficult to initiate the swing - if you are under. Stand on the runway with a bunch of kets suspended from a string. If you simply hold it - is there any movement? If you hold the keys towards the box -which way will the keys swing - compare that to what happens if you hold the keys away from the box.

Then she suffers form a another very common problem - often linked to being under. The legs swing up - have to be bent if you are under at take off - the legs keep swinging up but the hips do not. so into a V sit position. Athletes must learn to connect the swinging legs with the hips as they swing past the chord of the pole - then they take hips up with them.. Hips get in a position to drive the legs up instead of being pulled up by legs in a passive action. Simple biomechanics really. Work on connecting on the high bar. If you need a very clear model where this is spelled out, take a look at Lauren Eley on the BTB - dvd.

Just a little more thought on being under (although I won't be as illustrative as being "a little dead" - HA). Compare the swing to kicking either a soccer ball for distance or punting a football. In either case, the athlete steps forward with the non-kicking leg in order to stretch out the kicking leg. See where this is going? Relative to vaulting, the trail leg needs to be back and not under. Two primary things apply to the whip: 1) the whipping or trail leg is loaded by stretching out when the lead knee powerfully drives up and in; actually a dynamic action of jumping. 2) the vaulter needs to drive high off the trail leg toe (coach standing behind athlete should be able to see the bottom of shoe), but then rapidly whipping the leg. Again, with kicking a ball, the action is continuous and dynamic from beginning to end just as it should be in vaulting.

vquestpvc wrote: Compare the swing to kicking either a soccer ball for distance or punting a football. ...

To add to this, there's another analogy that is a prerequisite to this one.

Compare the TAKEOFF to a basketball layup. Even if you can't dunk (that includes most of us mere mortals), you should strive to reach up as high as you can before releasing the ball. The closer to the rim you reach, the easier the shot will be. This height is reached by driving the lead knee up, as the top hand (the one that you're mostly shooting with) is also driven up.

Thus, the plant combined with the takeoff is analogous to a basketball layup. My main point is that if you don't get this good driving, HIGH-PLANTING/JUMPING action, the WHIPPING action of the trail leg isn't nearly as effective.

The closer to your max jumping height that you reach (with good, forward-leaning posture), the more effective your whip will be, and the easier you'll roll the pole to vertical.

Kirk

Altius: I suppose I should have been more clear. Being a foot under is not typical of my vaulter. This is just the video I had handy at the time. Even when she is not under, she struggles to initiate an explosive swing and convert that into an inversion. You recommend high bar work, we do not have access to one, but do work on rings frequently and use a rope on occasion. So you have any other suggestions for drills to work the swing?

Rainbow Girl: we do short approach work at least once per week and she runs into the same problem there. I honestly think it may be a strength thing to some degree.

Vquestpvc: I like the "kick the soccer ball" cue, I have used that for a while, It has seemed to help my decathletes a lot.

From what I can see from the video she lacks a lot in her vault. Her swing is fine, sure, but that's not all the helps invert you.

In fact, looking at the video you can see she doesn't make much use of her shoulders and glutes. I believe that she should focus on her shoulder blades more (pulling them closer) because the contraction seems to coincide with a straighter vault. Moreover, If she were to focus on tightening her glutes--something my own coach taught me)--she could actually propel her hips closer to the pole.

This advice solely based on what she could improve on from the video alone.